August 26, 2011

"It is intrinsically fairly hard for a storm to make landfall upon New York City itself rather than somewhere else along the Atlantic," explains Nate Silver.

A considerably more likely scenario is that a hurricane-strength storm would come ashore on central Long Island. That would still be extremely bad: a weak Category 2 storm with an eye that passed about 50 miles from Manhattan would result in about $10 billion in damage, according to the model.

Although highly unlikely to be experienced in the case of Hurricane Irene, it is theoretically possible that an even stronger storm might hit the city at some point in the future. A Category 3 hurricane, one with wind speeds of 111 miles per hour or higher, could plausibly produce an economic impact in excess of $100 billion if its eye were to pass directly over Manhattan, according to the model. A stronger Category 3 storm, passing immediately over Manhattan, could rival or exceed the roughly $235 billion in economic damage estimated to have been caused by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

And more than a Category 3? Directly hitting NYC? It's never happened. "[I]in recorded history, no storm has made landfall in the Northeastern United States while stronger than a Category 3." But if it did — and Silver says maybe with global warming it might — the economic impact would hit the trillions.

Keep in mind that New York’s annual gross domestic product is estimated to be about $1.4 trillion — about one-tenth of the nation’s gross domestic product — so if much of the city were to become dysfunctional for months or more, the damage to the global and domestic economies would be almost incalculable. The property value of New York City real estate, meanwhile, is estimated to be about $800 billion, and property damage represents only a portion of the overall economic loss that might be incurred from a catastrophic hurricane.

Irene is right off our (North Carolina) coast now. 200 miles away from me. If by some fluke of weather patterns she heads straight inland, we're screwed. All week everyone has seen the models with the storm heading straight up the Coast in the traditional way, so nobody did any preparation. We're only expecting high winds and rain equal to a regular thunderstorm. Right now it's sunny and 79 degrees, couldn't be nicer.

Poor Obama?? He's still vacationing on Martha's Vineyard, isn't he? With everyone else leaving the place and with the MV residents trying to prepare their homes and businesses for the hurricane,do you suppose he cares that he's in the way?

And speaking of unlikely scenarios, If a medium sized asteroid were to hit the empire state building, the cost to repair New York city could reach into the multi-quadrillions!Also, if the nuclear reactor in Japan contaminates the ocean nearby, it could spawn the growth of a huge tyrannosaurus rex-like creature that could make it's way to New York city and kill tens of thousands of people, and who can put a price on a human life?

"One of the nastier potential consequences of global warming is that tropical cyclones could retain more momentum as they travel through the Eastern Seaboard, broadening the range of potential worst-case scenarios."

So they have no evidence nor do their models indicate the above statement to be correct, but they do go so far as to say that somebody somewhere does have a model that predicts a large increase in hurricanes. They conveniently assert that we won't see that predicted increase for another 50 years or so. Sort of like the old joke about Krugman accurately predicting 12 of the past 3 recessions.

People of the East Coast. Take care. We may have laughed at your little earthquake here on the West Coast. Irene is no laughing matter.

Stay safe Trooper!!

I thought: Poor Obama! It's so unfair for so many things to go wrong for him.

Perhaps we should look upon it as a challenge sent by God to test the mettle of the man. Instead of being unfair, it could be a positive for Obama. A real leader will rise to meet the challenge and overcome the troubles.

This sort of goes along with the manly man discussion. What is a manly man. What is a leader.

Unfortunately Obama is neither. Manly or a leader.

The test of the mettle of the people is how they handle a disaster. Self reliant and with stoicism as the people in Oklahoma and the Midwest....or whining and dependent like the people in New Orleans. We may see what the people of New York are made of.

Supposedly we have a global warming of 0.8 degrees over the past 100 or so years. With a precision, as near as I have been able to determine, of +/- 3-4 degrees.

In other words, we MIGHT have had some warming. On the other hand, given the level of precision on a very small measurement of very noisy data (few places have less than 10 degrees variation in the course of a day, 50 degrees in the course of a year) it is every bit as likely that we have global cooling of 1-2 degrees over the past 100 years.

Hurricane Agnes was a very early hurricane[June] and only a category 1. However, it was a slow mover and dumped 20 inches of rain. It wiped out Wilkes-Barre, Pa. where I went to school.

Hurricane Agnes was a good civics lesson for all us college students. All of our apartments were wiped out. However, it was an election year and Nixon sent in another flood..of federal aid. You want a house trailer rent free, no problem. Food stamps..absolutely. Interest free loans, just sign the papers here..and here's your check. Of course we saw rampant abuse and fraud. It turned many of us jaded and libertarian.

Wouldn't most of the buildings in Mahattan at least be pretty impervious to hurricane conditions? I mean, I get why wood-frame houses might be at risk, but what is a hurricane going to do to a steel- or concrete-skeletoned structure?

Why, we'd stay put just as generations of NYC residents have done in earlier storms; and, living in the world's greatest city, only good things will happen to us. Pace Jim Cantore and the Weather Channel, life is not a 'disaster' movie -- there's no lava flowing down the streets in LA, the Statute of Liberty hasn't been knocked over by a big wave (I can see it clearly from my office window as I write), and snow has never piled up to the top of the 42nd St. library. So it's time to cool it a bit with all the schadenfreude about NYC washing away one day. Not going to happen.

A little perspective: my townhouse in B'klyn Hts was built in 1842. It's gone through lots of storms since then, and is in much better shape today to withstand them than it was when built. It will make it through this one just fine. We'll put the stuff in the yard away on Saturday, store the rubbish bins in under the stoop, take the sensible precautions, and park the car in an indoor garage. Friends from Long Beach, where there may well be problems from the ocean surge, will spend the weekend with us in the City. I'll make sure to keep the champagne cold. And on Monday, we'll sweep up and go to work.

Weep not for me but for you and yours who have never had the opportunity to live in NYC. Are we all clear now?

The History Channel Mega Disaster series (2006) had an episode on a Cat 3 hitting NY City and compared it to a storm in the 1800's that hit. It wiped out Hog Islands off western Long Island. It showed how far the storm surge would go into Manhattan, etc. So, it has happened before; just a matter of time before it does again.

Yeah, poor Obama. He's still lounging in Martha's Vineyard while everyone else scrambles to safety. When you have the federal government, helicopters, 747s, etc at you disposal, it's pitiful.

More of that darned bad luck.

Anga2010 said...

Also, if the nuclear reactor in Japan contaminates the ocean nearby, it could spawn the growth of a huge tyrannosaurus rex-like creature that could make it's way to New York city and kill tens of thousands of people, and who can put a price on a human life?

Well, stay safe, Richard - and you, too, Trooper. Up here at the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border, we're expecting hard rain and high winds on Sunday afternoon, but I do hope Irene calms down by then.

(of course, just for the sheer schadenfreude of it all, I'd love Irene to wipe Nantucket off the map).

And Richard, I appreciate your sentiments regarding NYC (and how lovely to have an 1842 townhouse), but I couldn't live there. Unless it was the Village. I could probably enjoy myself for a couple of years there.

What happens beyond that gets into highly speculative territory: in recorded history, no storm has made landfall in the Northeastern United States while stronger than a Category 3. Meteorologists debate whether a Category 4 storm hitting New York is literally physically impossible, so unlikely as to be practically impossible, or a plausible occurrence but one that will happen less than once in a generation. One of the nastier potential consequences of global warming is that tropical cyclones could retain more momentum as they travel through the Eastern Seaboard, broadening the range of potential worst-case scenarios.

I have been through many hurricanes and am thankful that this one is heading north rather than west. Still sunny and warm here, but there are some high clouds and mares tails that indicate things are brewing on the coast.

I have been battening down the hatches, so to speak, but other than wind and rain, we won't really bear the brunt of this storm. I sure wouldn't want to be in the NYC area, however, as they really don't know how to deal with storms. It's kind of like New Orleans, only slightly above sea level, save the tunnels.

Time to get some gasoline for the chainsaws, gas up the pick up, get some groceries and hope this storm turns out to be more hype than harm.

Weep not for me but for you and yours who have never had the opportunity to live in NYC. Are we all clear now?

I've never had the opportunity to have my fingernails pulled out either. I'll pass.

I'm sure you would hate the area where I live too.

Quiet at night. Silence except for the sounds of geese or frogs depending on the time of year.... and coyotes. Everything shuts down about 8pm with the exception of the two bars in town..one of which shuts at midnight. No ambient lighting blocking out the stars. Wild animals roaming through your yard. No Starbucks or McDonalds or any fast food stores. (OMG!! the inhumanity). Miles and miles to the nearest shopping mall.

Isn't Obama staying put better for the people of Martha's Vineyard? I mean, think of the traffic jam if his motorcade had to move. I'm sure he'd shut the highways down for hours in advance and afterward just to be safe.

Quiet at night. Silence except for the sounds of geese or frogs depending on the time of year.... and coyotes. Everything shuts down about 8pm with the exception of the two bars in town..one of which shuts at midnight. No ambient lighting blocking out the stars. Wild animals roaming through your yard. No Starbucks or McDonalds or any fast food stores. (OMG!! the inhumanity). Miles and miles to the nearest shopping mall.

Nice, isn't it. I'm not quite as isolated as you, I suppose. There is a McDonald's within 10 miles and the bars stay open later. (No Starbucks.) Lately a doe and her two fawns have taken to grazing in my backyard. Geese and ducks in the creek behind my house. I have no desire to trade this for asphalt, bricks and glass.

Agnes was nowhere near Hurricane Strength when it made landfall in the northeast. I was camping in PA all during it and the subsequent flood. Not recommended.

The difficulty in NYC with a hurricane hit would be flying debris taking out skyscraper glass. Then everything in the skyscrapers gets blown around. This happened in Houston with Alicia, I think, in 1983, and New Orleans with Katrina.

Also, note that a lot of the loss would be covered by insurance. New Yorkers won't have to pony up $10 billion; it will come from Zurich. If my office loses a few windows, we'll work from home (steel frame, masonry clad) for a few days, the way we did after 9/11. Really, it won't be a big deal.

One thing that you have to be careful of is sustaining a head injury during a storm. Since Trooper York doesn't own a Cheesehead hat, may I suggest that he ties a whole lot of those big bras that he sells on his head. Can we get someone with a camera over there?

> How about if your office building not only loses all of its windows, the streets are flooded, subways flooded, no power in the city for days or even weeks. Looting and roving gangs of opportunists.

Oh you poor East Coasters! First that horrible earthquake and now a little rain and wind. Clearly we will descend into a state of criminal anarchy, and mothers will be forced to eat their own children! Clearly Mother Gaia is angry that we have ignored Her Chosen Prophet, Al Gore, and Her vengeance is upon us.

For cryin' out loud. You've had hurricanes before. And yet you keep rebuilding in hurricane zones.

"The mindset of never ever having experienced any sort of actual hardships."

I was here on 9/11. Also please note: (i) the buildings in NYC are not made of wood, and don't catch fire readily (unless you crash a plane into them), (ii) our police are not corrupt and will not head for the hills in case of trouble, they did in New Orleans, (iii) if the subways flood, we'll walk to work, like we usually do during transit strikes, and (iv) yeah, we got rats. Big rats. I see them every day. So what? Rats don't eat people, you know, they're just kind of gross.

Also, our firm has business interruption insurance, so if I can't come to work, the gnomes of Zurich will be paying me not to work.

I recall that shortly after I made OA (Our lodge, Monaken, only gave you a patch when you made it in..you couldn't buy one afterwards) the flap patch design was changed, so the patch I have is sought after. When I went to Philmont, it was envied. I still have it, but somehow I ended up with another one that I sold on ebay. Maybe that was my brother's.

It's all bullshit. Closing the effin subways, first time in 100 years, you gotta be kiddin. What does Walder care, he jumps to Bloomberg's tune, off to Hong Kong to cash in on a history of ineptitude, run the trains? He couldn't run a bingo game. Was the first guy Pataki fired and Jesus you had to be one flying asshole to get fired by Pataki. I've been here sixty some years, family since another hundred in the Village, never heard of anything like this. WTF, mandatory evacuation that's not mandatory. I can't begin to tell you what nonsense this is. Kids living on the ninth floor laying in gallons of water. Christ, the saloons will be open. You read this first right here, the City will open for business Monday am. That's if asshole Walder and douchbag Bloomberg can get the trains running. Their track record ain't good, ain't god at all.

My company's servers are located at the very base of Manhattan -- on the 30th floor of a steel/glass high-rise. I had a dream last night that the winds broke the glass windows and rain was pouring through the 30th floor, destroying all our servers -- meanwhile below, all of lower Manhattan was a swamp...impossible to reach the building without a canoe.

Grandma Bloomberg took a vicious hit in the polls during the winter when a snowstorm buried Queens County. So now he pretends he's all involved and concerned and yeah empathetic you know. It's all gonna backfire when nothing very interesting happens and he looks like the buffoon he is. The ultimate power-hungry douchebag.

You have to understand that Bloomberg is looking at global warming models proving that, just around the corner, the Battery will be twenty feet underwater. The fact that it's been in the same place for all of recorded history makes no difference to this moron. That just possibly, one day the South Ferry IRT station will be a skin diving site justifies ordering a mass evacuation which is not really mandatory and for which no planning or preparations have been made. I've seen these models and you have to be delusional to believe them but they do. Now Irene is only a Noreaster. Oops. On the other hand if an evacuation is ever really necessary, with these guys in charge, we are royally fucked.

Hey Sean, you're right, Zurich will cover business interruption. But you and me Buddy and every other taxpayer is on the hook to rebuild all those beach houses in Cherry Grove, Saltaire and along Dune Road in the Hamptons. That copasetic with you? Ain't with me, not one skoshi bit.

"[I]in recorded history, no storm has made landfall in the Northeastern United States while stronger than a Category 3."

Wiki: "The 1821 Norfolk and Long Island Hurricane, a Category 4 storm which made four separate landfalls in Virginia, New Jersey, New York and southern New England. The storm created the highest recorded storm surge in Manhattan of nearly 13 feet and severely impacted the farming regions of Long Island and southern New England."

The surge in Providence in 1938 was 20 feet high and was described both in New London and Providence as a "tidal wave." Some describe it as higher.

The claim is that 1938 was a Cat 3, but some of the reports make it seems higher. (Someone cut in half by flying sheet metal in Providence? Slate roof tile driven into a tree?)